May 19, 2008

YouTube Rodeo: Under-Rated Dinosaur Jr. Or "Whatever"

We remember that, when it hit retail racks, the Dinosaur Jr. EP (or was it marketed as a maxi-single? we think it was) Whatever's Cool With Me had a sticker on the shrink-wrap that clearly stated that the contents were absolutely NOT a new record. Being old and jaded we now wonder whether that was more for the benefit of the label, you know, whether they were just making sure J. didn't get the set counted as an album under the terms of his deliverables of his contract. But at the time we thought it was weird and a little unnecessary. Granted there were a lot of songs, a lot of great songs, some old and some new, on the short stack. And the cover picture of the grumpy, cute dog was a delight to behold. But still, we just didn't think anybody was going to mistake this for a new Dinosaur full-length. And the relatively remarkable sea change that Where You Been would manifest makes the idea sorta laughable that Whatever's Cool was the follow-up to the equally strong but in a sorta different way major label day-bew Green Mind. But now we're just blathering. The point of this post is exactly this: this is a really weird video for a really great song that we don't think gets enough props within the Dinosaur Jr. canon. Incidentally, the band kicks off the first of two legs of a European tour tomorrow night in Cologne, Germany.